Review Summaries

• Readers respond to the clarity of the subject and the distinctive approach. The work leaves an impression through its structure, style, or treatment of character and theme.

Reviews

• Sigrid and Deborah together is a wonderful read!

  I don't understand all the dislike of Sigrid in previous reviews. I'm a fan of all Margaret Maron's books so it was a special joy to read Sigrid and Deborah interacting. The two characters could not be more different in upbringing and social skills. Sigrid is an only child who lost her father very young and was treated as different by her mother's southern family her whole life. Deborah, though she lost her mother as a young woman, is the darling of her family, the only daughter born after eleven older brothers and the apple of her fathers eye. She enjoys an ease among people Sigrid will never know. I loved this book in the setting where Sigrid is most comfortable. It's pure torture to have to wait until November 2012 when Buzzard's Table is released to finally see Sigrid out of her element in Colleton County! The Sigrid books are finally being released e books so there is an opportunity to know Sigrid better. Her awkwardness is endearing and at times very funny.

• New York, New York

  What could be better than a week in a New York apartment to celebrate their delayed honeymoon? Before you know it though they’re tripping over dead bodies and getting to know the NY Police department way better than ever planned. Sometimes it’s the person you least suspect that’s guilty.

• Yeah...Sigrid and Deborah meet up!

  I am more into Margaret's Deborah Knott series, but it is an interesting twist to bring her face to face with Sigrid. Also, I love how New Yorkers assume everyone in a southern state is related or at least knows each other...of course...that is sometimes true!! Again, this moves along Dwight and Deborah's story, but be prepared for a more grisly murder than usual.

• Sigrid and Deborah together!

  I've always liked Margaret Maron's Sigrid Harald series better than the more widely popular Judge Deborah Knott mysteries, perhaps because Sigrid seems like a more serious person and lives in a city I really enjoy. But add the two of them together, and in that very city -- New York -- and this book is a winner. Deborah and Dwight are finally taking a honeymoon more than a year after they were wed. A friend has offered them an apartment in a West Side building for a week, and when they arrive they find it's close to a fascinating food store (Dwight's weakness) and an upscale shoe store (Deborah's weakness). But the building's super is killed in their apartment almost as soon as they arrive, and they become enmeshed in the investigation that Sigrid Harald is conducting. There is much of Deborah's patented making-friends-with-strangers-who-then-tell-all, Deborah's being related to just about everyone in North Carolina, and Deborah's sticking her nose where it doesn't belong, whether it puts her in danger or not. Here, though, all of these are leavened with her joy in the big city and her romance with Dwight, and it's lovely. What is not here is any degree of a solvable mystery that the reader can figure out if she follows the clues. The killer and his motivation reveal themselves, ultimately, rather than anyone solving the mystery. Still, it's worth reading this mystery just to visit with Deborah, Dwight and Sigrid. I'm looking forward to Sigrid's upcoming trip to North Carolina, to see how the friendship these characters have struck up fares under Southern hospitality.

• Three-Day Town

  Another great Maron book. This one combines two of my favourite characters, Deborah Knott and Sigrid Harald, working to solve a murder in New York City. It's a great read, with nice interplays between Deborah and Dwight and members of their families. And as an added bonus, it brings in some familiar faces from the Sigrid series filling in some blanks since the series finished. It made made me wish Maron would write more Sigrid Harald books again so I'd have both of these really interesting characters to look forward to. As for Three-Day Town, I had trouble putting down.

Purchase links